> Their position is weak because there are so many bands out there that want to be signed. I have a feeling that any band that tries to negotiate a better contract is just kicked to the curb and the next band is signed instead.
Which goes a long way toward explaining the shite you see in the record stores these days.
> If these intelligent design people want to believe that God or whoever was behind natural selection and selected species for extinction using the rules [HhSs]e developed, etc., that's fine. It doesn't really matter as long as they accept the fact that the genesis of man happened in the same way as the genesis of every other species. Perhaps God gave us a soul, perhaps not. Does it matter when trying to understand the fossil record?
What the leaders of the Intelligent Design movement are slow to tell the churches they visit on their speaking tours (odd venue for scientists, but such is the nature of ID "science") is that most of them actually accept an ancient earth, the big bang, and even biological evolution. They just want to preserve some tiny niche for God to hide in, so they can get religion back in the public schools. Thus they pursue a "big tent" creationism in order to draw in enough voters to force the issue in state legislatures and state or local school board meetings.
They are also, for the most part, neocons who think "religion is the opiate of the masses, and that's a good thing" (as the cynics on talk.origins phrase it). The Discovery Institute is actually an arm of a neocon umbrella organization which formerly promoted "the renewal of science and culture" before that admission proved to be too damning for their goals of getting religion taught as science in the public schools, and they pulled their strategy off their Web site. For more information on this, google for ["intelligent design" "wedge document"] or ["Discovery Institute" "wedge document"], and you should be able to turn up lots of interesting reading. Or if you can't find anything apropos, visit talk.origins and delurk long enough to ask about Intelligent Design and political goals. People there can direct you to much better readings than I can. Or take a peek at talkdesign.org and see what a bit of browsing turns up.
> The article isn't saying evolution is right (that's another debate). It's saying that the scientific community is nowhere near about to reject it.
FYI, it's a sort of satire on the play made by the fans of "Intelligent Design" for the Ohio state school board last year, where they sought to descredit evolution by publishing a letter signed by fifty scientists who rejected the theory of evolution, or at least called for giving equal time to the alternatives. It turned out that about half of those "scientists" were professors of mechanical engineering, dental surgery, and the like, who are not normally considered scientists at all - let alone experts on evolution. The other half (26 or 27 of the 50, IIRC) still generously includes mathematicians, chemists, etc., who can in fact be considered scientists, though not exactly heavyweights when it comes to biological theories. I don't remember the count, but there certainly weren't many biologists among the 50.
> I have not yet seen an evolutionist produce demonstrable evidence of speciation that would explain the formation of apes from amoebas as easily as one could posit the formation of iron from helium in nuclear reactions. The reason for this is precisely the question of process. I would imagine that the process happens naturally over such a long period of time, such that it would be difficult to provide such evidence.
It is also difficult to provide the kind of gapless evidence you want for evolution when studying the life cycle of stars. Do you reject the astrophysicists' model because you accept nuclear reactions but haven't seen the whole life of a star from beginning to end?
> But kindly point me to the contravening evidence if it exists, because I really would like to know.
Assuming that "contravening" isn't the word you intended to use, the evidence for the tree of life is the fossil record and the genetic record.
> But 1 must be followed by 2, 3, etc. as clearly as the spallation equations are before I would accept the theory of evolution as a law and ridicule those who would question it.
The theory of evolution isn't "a law"; it's a model that explains the evidence. It only fails for the in-betweens if you make the completely unsupportable claim that "I can get from 1 to 10 by iteratively adding one, but I can't get from 10 to 1000 that way." The Intelligent Design theorists are indeed trying to make that argument, but every claim they make is full of leaks. Ergo, they haven't actually made that argument. There simply isn't any reason to believe that stepwise change cannot lead to vast differences.
> If it's really as devestating a position, the support behind it should be more than "I shouldn't have to defend this" and oblique references to anti-education initiatives.
You miss the facts that (a) I'm not so much defending anything as pointing out that Behe is drawing grand conclusions from a flawed argument, and (b) the attack on apolitical science education is an observable phenomenon, which curiously goes hand in hand with creationism and "Intelligent Design".
> I find your evaluation of Behe's argument completely misguided and wholly disrepectful.
As a matter of fact, I don't respect him. He is either dishonest or an idiot.
> Behe is a respected scientist (perhaps not by you) in his field.
Funny, alumini of Lehigh University sometimes report embarrasment over the fact that he has tenure there.
> It is not just to dismiss his arguments as mere "bullshit."
Actually, it is always just to call bullshit "bullshit".
> Instead of trying to insult him and those who agree with him - or at least entertain his theories as containing some truth in them - I suggest you calmy and clearly lay out why you disagree with him
I already did.
> Physicists thought Albert Einstein's relativity postulates were just pseudo-science, but it turns out he was right.
"They also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
> I feel that Behe has raised a valid objection. While I would agree that it is not enough to show that only one path from X to Y is not possible, I think that his critics should show how alternative paths may be not just possible but likely to happen. He has shown that the most direct and (previously assumed, by many, most plausible) path from X to Y could not happen. That still gives me pause when I consider evolution as we know it. So using logic similar to your own, merely showing that there is a path from X to Y is possible is not enough. You must show that that particular path is plausible and likely to happen.
No, Behe is trying to disprove the sufficiency of a theory. Either he has disproved it or he hasn't; a partial argument doesn't count. In this case he hasn't disproved it, because all he has offered is a partial argument.
Notice that biologists do not claim that the theory of evolution tells them every detail of the history of life on earth. We simply have a mechanism that appears to explain the evidence we have. If someone wants to make a claim that the mechanism doesn't explain some of the evidence, then they need to actually support their claim rather than waving their hands and offering an argument that will appeal to the uninformed masses.
> And the mere fact the Y exists is not enough to show that it came from X, as creationism itself can explain the existence of Y with no problem.
Yes, because as I said earlier, creationism is compatible with any observation.
> Bottom Line: It would be nice to read other people's arguments charitably. To start with the assumption that those who disagree with you are automatically wrong is not a good position to take. Just because you disagree with his arguments is no reason to attack him personally and professionally as a scientist.
The problem with Behe and his ilk isn't his opinions, but the fact that he continues to peddle them even after they have been shown to be wrong. That makes him a pseudo-scientist.
> If you do so, then people will fail to take you seriously as well and then disregard your opinions.
I am quite accustomed to having creationists disregard sound arguments. I am posting for the benefit of any lurkers who might think Behe's credentials guarantee that anything he says is valid. (Lurkers may also want to read up on Behe and the wedge strategy.)
In science, bullshit walks. Behe isn't publishing this crap in biology journals because he can't make a case for his beliefs. That's why he groups with Bozo rather than Einstein. I'll be happy to welcome into the fold of scientists when he starts doing science instead of religious politics.
> That nuclear reactions power the sun can be largely reproduced in a laboratory.
So can the mechanisms posited by the theory of evolution.
[Re-read that sentence carefully before replying.]
Moreover, reproducing something in the laboratory doesn't necessarily mean that that's what actually happens in nature. Whence the acceptance of what happens in the laboratory as a "demonstration" of what happens in the sun, while rejecting the same for evolution?
> I agree that irreducible complexity is mostly an argument by induction.
You're too kind. As I pointed out above, it's an argument by bullshit. I'll be happy to repeat the argument if anyone needs to hear it twice.
> But the fact remains that this plant we are discussing is largely a transgenic creature which happens to be capable of reproducing itself. Such organisms can be constructed in the laboratory, and I surmise, given enough effort, could be constructed to reproduce only with their own kind. In fact there are already efforts to do this sort of thing IIRC. No new complexity has been added; this plant operates like countless other plants. If, instead, it had developed some ability heretofore unseen in its phylum, then I would withdraw my objection.
So do you recommend that all creationists now withdraw their objections to speciation by the mechanisms proposed by the modern theory of evolution?
Also, notice that the notion of "complexity" does not seem to be well defined for a discussion of evolution. What should we look for if we want to observe an increase in complexity, and how should we measure it?
> It is up to the proponents of a theory, any theory, to provide evidence not only of A and Z, but all points in between if they want their work to be held up as law.
You misunderstand what science is all about. The theory of evolution isn't required to give a complete history of every species any more than the theory of geology is required to give a complete history of all the pebbles in my garden.
Behe and his cronies are claiming to have demonstrated that the theory of evolution doesn't explain what we see in nature, but the simple fact is that they haven't demonstrated it. If you want to claim that "X can't produce Y" it is not sufficient to show that one path from X to Y fails: you must show that all paths fail, or you simply haven't made your case. And there's absolutely no need for anyone to defend a well established theory against a case that hasn't actually been made.
Behe, Dembski, et al. are simply dressing up the traditional argument from incredulity in some obfuscating pseudo-scientific jargon so that interested but uninformed people will not see through to the underlying nonsense. I suspect that they are doing it dishonestly, but it may be the case that they are merely incompetent as scientists. (I can't read their minds, so I'll leave it to the reader to choose which rope to hang them with.)
> You will please note this post, nor any other post of mine, will ever include "nonsense," "uninformed," or "pseudo-science." Such pejoratives should not be necessary if the strength of the argument is behind you.
I only find them necessary when following a policy of calling a spade a spade. Creationism is nonsense. IC & ID are pseudo-science. People who support any of it are either uninformed or else dishonest. I make no apology for calling those spades spades; indeed, I feel like it is my civic duty to do so, since the Discovery Institute is at the forefront of a movement to destroy apolitical science and science education in the USA.
> you yourself seem to completely ignore the fact that evolution is a theory, one disputed by a lot of scientific evidence. The laws of thermodynamics for instance.
Ahem. The theory of evolution does not invoke any processes not actually seen in nature. Ergo, they do not violate the laws of thermodynamics or any other laws of nature.
The creationist position misrepresents the second law of thermodynamics as a rule that "things can't get better spontaneously", as if that would rule out useful mutations. Alas for the proponents of special creation, that's not what the second law of thermodynamics says. As its name indicates, it says something about thermodynamics. The mutations that occur in sexual reproduction do not violate that law, or they wouldn't happen at all. Nor can the 2LoT be invoked to selectively rule out the "good" mutations, because the chemistry involved in the mutations doesn't have any notion of "good" and "bad" mutations - neither you nor the laws of thermodynamics nor Maxwell's daemon can look at the local sequence of bases in a strand of DNA and predict whether an arbitrary mutation would be "good" or "bad". By the time fitness is "evaluated" by the environment, the thermodynamic considerations pertaining to the chemistry of the mutation is ancient history.
> The site www.dpicorp.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000.
That's pretty much irrelevant until we find out how the numbers were acquired. For instance, if someone hacked an application rather than the OS, or if the hack had inside help (such as a leaked password), then the OS is completely irrelevant.
> As a skeptical scientist who tends not to fully accept anything which cannot be demonstrated [...]
I wonder if you would elaborate on the scientific concept of "demonstrated". For example, has it been "demonstrated" that nuclear reactions power the sun? Has the existence of quarks been "demonstrated"?
And if these things have not been "demonstrated" to your satisfaction, how skeptical of them are you?
> But does this new weed, or any others like it, demonstrate any unique functionality? [...] I'm curious, because I feel that the "irreducible complexity" argument remains to be answered until such a new functionality can be found.
The IC argument has been demonstrated to be nonsense even without this discovery. The IC argument merely rules out the most direct path of evolution for a structure or system, and then jumps to the unwarranted conclusion that no path exists. IC, like the rest of the "Intelligent Design" movement, is just pseudo-science offered up to give the uninformed and/or uncritical thinkers a reason to keep believing that their God had something to do with something.
> For instance, we know the universe is expanding without bound or limit. We know that it is filling a void (imagine what the edge of the universe must look like and where it is going). Does that void have a real existence or can our consciousness and physical being not exist beyond the confines of the physical universe into that void?
IANACosmologist, but I'm 99.999999% sure that cosmologists do not reckon that the universe is expanding into a void or anything else. Space itself is expanding; there isn't any space outside the universe. (Barring some conjectures about parallel universes, branes, etc., which still don't provide a void for our universe to expand into.)
> To take it a step further, is it even possible for us to imagine what existed prior to the Big Bang?
No, because as Steven Hawking has shown, time is an artifact of the big bang; the concept of "prior" is undefined.
> I find it amazing that the Earth formed at just the right distance from the Sun, with all the necessary stellar material, at the right time in the Sun's life cycle on the main sequence to allow for life to develop. Of course the most amazing component of that thought, is that the stellar material existed in the correct quantities to provide a useful biosphere.
That is an appeal to the anthropic principle. In its weak form it's merely an observation that if things were very different then we wouldn't be here to notice it. In it's strong form it is often offered as an argument for special creation (to make a cozy home for our important selves), but a moment's thought will show that the overwhelming majority of the universe is exceedingly inhospitable for life as we know it.
> I must admit however, that I don't believe evolution to be a science as is biology or physics.
Why not? Evolution (or, strictly speaking, the study of evolution) is just an attempt to understand how one aspect of the universe works, just like biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. We look at the evidence, generate a model to explain it, consider the implications of the model, and then look to see whether additional observations agree with or contradict those implications.
> I was Home Schooled and My Father was an ordained Minister and I had Creation vs. Evolution and Evolution vs. Creation beaten into me to-infinity-and-beyond. The only conclusion I ever came to is that neither side (Creation and Evolution) is able to objectively study this issue because when it boils down to the bare bottom, both Evolution and Creation are a belief systems
That's certainly a popular view on the side that doesn't have any supporting evidence. But perhaps you'd see things differently if you learned your evolutionary biology from a biologist rather than from an ordained minister. After all, you wouldn't go to a biologist to learn about theology, would you?
> As a simulation engineer I know that there are times when multiple models fit the system and that sometimes taking the best of several models is the correct solution.
The problem is, creationism isn't a model at all. Creationism invokes the arbitrary whim of an all-powerful deity as its explanation, but that "explanation" is compatible with any observation, and thus doesn't actually explain anything at all. It's absolutely irrefutable, in the same way claims of the efficacy of prayer are irrefutable. If you pray for rain and get rain, then that's evidence the prayer works; if you you pray for rain and don't get rain, well, that's because God didn't want you to have it. If you believe in prayer, no observation will convince you otherwise, and similarly for special creation.
And that's the difference between religion and science. Science tries to create models that actually explain the observations, and wildcards are not sufficient for that task.
However, notice that evolution (or science in general) is not incompatible with religion in general. Rather, it is only incompatible with certain claims that certain religions promote. Including, for example, claims of a young earth and a global flood.
I think an "open source book" would be a very interesting experiment. Of course you'd have to limit who could update your CVS archive, or else lots of kiddies would continually give it the textual equivalent of the goatse treatment.
Still, I'd like to see someone try it. Maybe it would turn out to be a bland lowest-common-denominator mush, but OTOH maybe the authors would build on each others ideas to create something nice.
>... It basically said that there was nothing really preventing another 9/11 from happening again, mainly because airlines for incoming flights are still very poorly secured. Thus, instead of hijacking the plane from a US airport, just 'jack one from Honduras or wherever, and crash it into a building on the way into a US airport.
So I wonder how many "no pork" can be on your flight before the US decides to shoot it down on the way in?
> Not to mention, if humans were so creative 50,000 years ago, why do we only have ~5,000 years of recorded history? Did it really take another 45,000 _years_ for us to write something down, or carve something, etc...? Come on.
Even if you are only familiar with recent history it should be clear that our species' technological capabilities are growing at an exponential rate. When you look further and further back you should be unsurprised to see that progress is almost flat out on the tail of the curve.
Simply put, no one wrote anything down until someone invented writing.
> ve never heard of anything man-made that's 50,000 years old.
Start with this. I can't vouch for the accuracy of that site, but if you don't like it a few minutes with Google should turn up a few thousand others. Or if you're really desperate you should be able to find lots of goodies in a library or anthropology textbook.
> Doesn't that really throw a monkey-wrench into the theory of evolution (which, like so many other theories, is so often stated as fact by those blinded to other possibilities).
If you have an alternative theory that explains the facts as well or better than the ToE does, there are lots of scientists who would like to hear it.
> The majority of stories in the Bible have been proven true. (Soddom and Gommorah, King David, Herod, Abraham, Moses)
I don't follow this very closely, but I keep hearing from completely orthogonal sources that there isn't any evidence for any of the biblical 'history' up through and including Solomon. Interested parties might want to check up on the opposing claims.
And of course some of it, such as the Great Flood, was falsified 200 years ago.
> after realizing these stories are true - the Bible says that "I am the word" - so it does take faith, but more courage to believe, if one thing is true in the Bible, it must all be true.
a) logos ("the word") does not refer to a book.
b) The leap you describe isn't so much "faith" as "bad logic". Historical novels have a lot of true stuff in them, but only a fool would conclude from that fact that the whole novel was true.
> Scientists (in aggregate) do not have an agenda of destroying all faiths.
I would guess that the majority of scientists in the USA are Christians. I think I have seen mention of a survey on it, which interested parties might be able to find with Google or by asking about it in the talk.origins newsgroup.
Slashdot Mirror
> Their position is weak because there are so many bands out there that want to be signed. I have a feeling that any band that tries to negotiate a better contract is just kicked to the curb and the next band is signed instead.
Which goes a long way toward explaining the shite you see in the record stores these days.
> It just won't be the same. No way.
Now guitars will console themselves by downloading p0rn off the internet.
> If these intelligent design people want to believe that God or whoever was behind natural selection and selected species for extinction using the rules [HhSs]e developed, etc., that's fine. It doesn't really matter as long as they accept the fact that the genesis of man happened in the same way as the genesis of every other species. Perhaps God gave us a soul, perhaps not. Does it matter when trying to understand the fossil record?
What the leaders of the Intelligent Design movement are slow to tell the churches they visit on their speaking tours (odd venue for scientists, but such is the nature of ID "science") is that most of them actually accept an ancient earth, the big bang, and even biological evolution. They just want to preserve some tiny niche for God to hide in, so they can get religion back in the public schools. Thus they pursue a "big tent" creationism in order to draw in enough voters to force the issue in state legislatures and state or local school board meetings.
They are also, for the most part, neocons who think "religion is the opiate of the masses, and that's a good thing" (as the cynics on talk.origins phrase it). The Discovery Institute is actually an arm of a neocon umbrella organization which formerly promoted "the renewal of science and culture" before that admission proved to be too damning for their goals of getting religion taught as science in the public schools, and they pulled their strategy off their Web site. For more information on this, google for ["intelligent design" "wedge document"] or ["Discovery Institute" "wedge document"], and you should be able to turn up lots of interesting reading. Or if you can't find anything apropos, visit talk.origins and delurk long enough to ask about Intelligent Design and political goals. People there can direct you to much better readings than I can. Or take a peek at talkdesign.org and see what a bit of browsing turns up.
> The article isn't saying evolution is right (that's another debate). It's saying that the scientific community is nowhere near about to reject it.
FYI, it's a sort of satire on the play made by the fans of "Intelligent Design" for the Ohio state school board last year, where they sought to descredit evolution by publishing a letter signed by fifty scientists who rejected the theory of evolution, or at least called for giving equal time to the alternatives. It turned out that about half of those "scientists" were professors of mechanical engineering, dental surgery, and the like, who are not normally considered scientists at all - let alone experts on evolution. The other half (26 or 27 of the 50, IIRC) still generously includes mathematicians, chemists, etc., who can in fact be considered scientists, though not exactly heavyweights when it comes to biological theories. I don't remember the count, but there certainly weren't many biologists among the 50.
> I have not yet seen an evolutionist produce demonstrable evidence of speciation that would explain the formation of apes from amoebas as easily as one could posit the formation of iron from helium in nuclear reactions. The reason for this is precisely the question of process. I would imagine that the process happens naturally over such a long period of time, such that it would be difficult to provide such evidence.
It is also difficult to provide the kind of gapless evidence you want for evolution when studying the life cycle of stars. Do you reject the astrophysicists' model because you accept nuclear reactions but haven't seen the whole life of a star from beginning to end?
> But kindly point me to the contravening evidence if it exists, because I really would like to know.
Assuming that "contravening" isn't the word you intended to use, the evidence for the tree of life is the fossil record and the genetic record.
> But 1 must be followed by 2, 3, etc. as clearly as the spallation equations are before I would accept the theory of evolution as a law and ridicule those who would question it.
The theory of evolution isn't "a law"; it's a model that explains the evidence. It only fails for the in-betweens if you make the completely unsupportable claim that "I can get from 1 to 10 by iteratively adding one, but I can't get from 10 to 1000 that way." The Intelligent Design theorists are indeed trying to make that argument, but every claim they make is full of leaks. Ergo, they haven't actually made that argument. There simply isn't any reason to believe that stepwise change cannot lead to vast differences.
> If it's really as devestating a position, the support behind it should be more than "I shouldn't have to defend this" and oblique references to anti-education initiatives.
You miss the facts that (a) I'm not so much defending anything as pointing out that Behe is drawing grand conclusions from a flawed argument, and (b) the attack on apolitical science education is an observable phenomenon, which curiously goes hand in hand with creationism and "Intelligent Design".
> I find your evaluation of Behe's argument completely misguided and wholly disrepectful.
As a matter of fact, I don't respect him. He is either dishonest or an idiot.
> Behe is a respected scientist (perhaps not by you) in his field.
Funny, alumini of Lehigh University sometimes report embarrasment over the fact that he has tenure there.
> It is not just to dismiss his arguments as mere "bullshit."
Actually, it is always just to call bullshit "bullshit".
> Instead of trying to insult him and those who agree with him - or at least entertain his theories as containing some truth in them - I suggest you calmy and clearly lay out why you disagree with him
I already did.
> Physicists thought Albert Einstein's relativity postulates were just pseudo-science, but it turns out he was right.
"They also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
> I feel that Behe has raised a valid objection. While I would agree that it is not enough to show that only one path from X to Y is not possible, I think that his critics should show how alternative paths may be not just possible but likely to happen. He has shown that the most direct and (previously assumed, by many, most plausible) path from X to Y could not happen. That still gives me pause when I consider evolution as we know it. So using logic similar to your own, merely showing that there is a path from X to Y is possible is not enough. You must show that that particular path is plausible and likely to happen.
No, Behe is trying to disprove the sufficiency of a theory. Either he has disproved it or he hasn't; a partial argument doesn't count. In this case he hasn't disproved it, because all he has offered is a partial argument.
Notice that biologists do not claim that the theory of evolution tells them every detail of the history of life on earth. We simply have a mechanism that appears to explain the evidence we have. If someone wants to make a claim that the mechanism doesn't explain some of the evidence, then they need to actually support their claim rather than waving their hands and offering an argument that will appeal to the uninformed masses.
> And the mere fact the Y exists is not enough to show that it came from X, as creationism itself can explain the existence of Y with no problem.
Yes, because as I said earlier, creationism is compatible with any observation.
> Bottom Line: It would be nice to read other people's arguments charitably. To start with the assumption that those who disagree with you are automatically wrong is not a good position to take. Just because you disagree with his arguments is no reason to attack him personally and professionally as a scientist.
The problem with Behe and his ilk isn't his opinions, but the fact that he continues to peddle them even after they have been shown to be wrong. That makes him a pseudo-scientist.
> If you do so, then people will fail to take you seriously as well and then disregard your opinions.
I am quite accustomed to having creationists disregard sound arguments. I am posting for the benefit of any lurkers who might think Behe's credentials guarantee that anything he says is valid. (Lurkers may also want to read up on Behe and the wedge strategy.)
In science, bullshit walks. Behe isn't publishing this crap in biology journals because he can't make a case for his beliefs. That's why he groups with Bozo rather than Einstein. I'll be happy to welcome into the fold of scientists when he starts doing science instead of religious politics.
> That nuclear reactions power the sun can be largely reproduced in a laboratory.
So can the mechanisms posited by the theory of evolution.
[Re-read that sentence carefully before replying.]
Moreover, reproducing something in the laboratory doesn't necessarily mean that that's what actually happens in nature. Whence the acceptance of what happens in the laboratory as a "demonstration" of what happens in the sun, while rejecting the same for evolution?
> I agree that irreducible complexity is mostly an argument by induction.
You're too kind. As I pointed out above, it's an argument by bullshit. I'll be happy to repeat the argument if anyone needs to hear it twice.
> But the fact remains that this plant we are discussing is largely a transgenic creature which happens to be capable of reproducing itself. Such organisms can be constructed in the laboratory, and I surmise, given enough effort, could be constructed to reproduce only with their own kind. In fact there are already efforts to do this sort of thing IIRC. No new complexity has been added; this plant operates like countless other plants. If, instead, it had developed some ability heretofore unseen in its phylum, then I would withdraw my objection.
So do you recommend that all creationists now withdraw their objections to speciation by the mechanisms proposed by the modern theory of evolution?
Also, notice that the notion of "complexity" does not seem to be well defined for a discussion of evolution. What should we look for if we want to observe an increase in complexity, and how should we measure it?
> It is up to the proponents of a theory, any theory, to provide evidence not only of A and Z, but all points in between if they want their work to be held up as law.
You misunderstand what science is all about. The theory of evolution isn't required to give a complete history of every species any more than the theory of geology is required to give a complete history of all the pebbles in my garden.
Behe and his cronies are claiming to have demonstrated that the theory of evolution doesn't explain what we see in nature, but the simple fact is that they haven't demonstrated it. If you want to claim that "X can't produce Y" it is not sufficient to show that one path from X to Y fails: you must show that all paths fail, or you simply haven't made your case. And there's absolutely no need for anyone to defend a well established theory against a case that hasn't actually been made.
Behe, Dembski, et al. are simply dressing up the traditional argument from incredulity in some obfuscating pseudo-scientific jargon so that interested but uninformed people will not see through to the underlying nonsense. I suspect that they are doing it dishonestly, but it may be the case that they are merely incompetent as scientists. (I can't read their minds, so I'll leave it to the reader to choose which rope to hang them with.)
> You will please note this post, nor any other post of mine, will ever include "nonsense," "uninformed," or "pseudo-science." Such pejoratives should not be necessary if the strength of the argument is behind you.
I only find them necessary when following a policy of calling a spade a spade. Creationism is nonsense. IC & ID are pseudo-science. People who support any of it are either uninformed or else dishonest. I make no apology for calling those spades spades; indeed, I feel like it is my civic duty to do so, since the Discovery Institute is at the forefront of a movement to destroy apolitical science and science education in the USA.
> you yourself seem to completely ignore the fact that evolution is a theory, one disputed by a lot of scientific evidence. The laws of thermodynamics for instance.
Ahem. The theory of evolution does not invoke any processes not actually seen in nature. Ergo, they do not violate the laws of thermodynamics or any other laws of nature.
The creationist position misrepresents the second law of thermodynamics as a rule that "things can't get better spontaneously", as if that would rule out useful mutations. Alas for the proponents of special creation, that's not what the second law of thermodynamics says. As its name indicates, it says something about thermodynamics. The mutations that occur in sexual reproduction do not violate that law, or they wouldn't happen at all. Nor can the 2LoT be invoked to selectively rule out the "good" mutations, because the chemistry involved in the mutations doesn't have any notion of "good" and "bad" mutations - neither you nor the laws of thermodynamics nor Maxwell's daemon can look at the local sequence of bases in a strand of DNA and predict whether an arbitrary mutation would be "good" or "bad". By the time fitness is "evaluated" by the environment, the thermodynamic considerations pertaining to the chemistry of the mutation is ancient history.
> Kind of puts a kibosh on the whole environmental movement, don't you think?
Save the weeds!
> What is more unhealthy? Volcanic gas, or melting hydrocarbons with aluminum? I can't decide.
Snort one up each nostril and see which side of your brain dies the fastest.
I used to just throw mine into the nearest active volcano, until I found out some volcano-diving kiddie named d4r74 was reading them anyway.
> The site www.dpicorp.com is running Microsoft-IIS/5.0 on Windows 2000.
That's pretty much irrelevant until we find out how the numbers were acquired. For instance, if someone hacked an application rather than the OS, or if the hack had inside help (such as a leaked password), then the OS is completely irrelevant.
> As a skeptical scientist who tends not to fully accept anything which cannot be demonstrated [...]
I wonder if you would elaborate on the scientific concept of "demonstrated". For example, has it been "demonstrated" that nuclear reactions power the sun? Has the existence of quarks been "demonstrated"?
And if these things have not been "demonstrated" to your satisfaction, how skeptical of them are you?
> But does this new weed, or any others like it, demonstrate any unique functionality? [...] I'm curious, because I feel that the "irreducible complexity" argument remains to be answered until such a new functionality can be found.
The IC argument has been demonstrated to be nonsense even without this discovery. The IC argument merely rules out the most direct path of evolution for a structure or system, and then jumps to the unwarranted conclusion that no path exists. IC, like the rest of the "Intelligent Design" movement, is just pseudo-science offered up to give the uninformed and/or uncritical thinkers a reason to keep believing that their God had something to do with something.
> For instance, we know the universe is expanding without bound or limit. We know that it is filling a void (imagine what the edge of the universe must look like and where it is going). Does that void have a real existence or can our consciousness and physical being not exist beyond the confines of the physical universe into that void?
IANACosmologist, but I'm 99.999999% sure that cosmologists do not reckon that the universe is expanding into a void or anything else. Space itself is expanding; there isn't any space outside the universe. (Barring some conjectures about parallel universes, branes, etc., which still don't provide a void for our universe to expand into.)
> To take it a step further, is it even possible for us to imagine what existed prior to the Big Bang?
No, because as Steven Hawking has shown, time is an artifact of the big bang; the concept of "prior" is undefined.
> I find it amazing that the Earth formed at just the right distance from the Sun, with all the necessary stellar material, at the right time in the Sun's life cycle on the main sequence to allow for life to develop. Of course the most amazing component of that thought, is that the stellar material existed in the correct quantities to provide a useful biosphere.
That is an appeal to the anthropic principle. In its weak form it's merely an observation that if things were very different then we wouldn't be here to notice it. In it's strong form it is often offered as an argument for special creation (to make a cozy home for our important selves), but a moment's thought will show that the overwhelming majority of the universe is exceedingly inhospitable for life as we know it.
> I must admit however, that I don't believe evolution to be a science as is biology or physics.
Why not? Evolution (or, strictly speaking, the study of evolution) is just an attempt to understand how one aspect of the universe works, just like biology, chemistry, physics, astronomy, etc. We look at the evidence, generate a model to explain it, consider the implications of the model, and then look to see whether additional observations agree with or contradict those implications.
> I was Home Schooled and My Father was an ordained Minister and I had Creation vs. Evolution and Evolution vs. Creation beaten into me to-infinity-and-beyond. The only conclusion I ever came to is that neither side (Creation and Evolution) is able to objectively study this issue because when it boils down to the bare bottom, both Evolution and Creation are a belief systems
That's certainly a popular view on the side that doesn't have any supporting evidence. But perhaps you'd see things differently if you learned your evolutionary biology from a biologist rather than from an ordained minister. After all, you wouldn't go to a biologist to learn about theology, would you?
> As a simulation engineer I know that there are times when multiple models fit the system and that sometimes taking the best of several models is the correct solution.
The problem is, creationism isn't a model at all. Creationism invokes the arbitrary whim of an all-powerful deity as its explanation, but that "explanation" is compatible with any observation, and thus doesn't actually explain anything at all. It's absolutely irrefutable, in the same way claims of the efficacy of prayer are irrefutable. If you pray for rain and get rain, then that's evidence the prayer works; if you you pray for rain and don't get rain, well, that's because God didn't want you to have it. If you believe in prayer, no observation will convince you otherwise, and similarly for special creation.
And that's the difference between religion and science. Science tries to create models that actually explain the observations, and wildcards are not sufficient for that task.
However, notice that evolution (or science in general) is not incompatible with religion in general. Rather, it is only incompatible with certain claims that certain religions promote. Including, for example, claims of a young earth and a global flood.
Q: Is it still okay to send my credit card number over SSL?
A: Yes, after last weekend everyone already knows your credit card number anyway, so don't worry about it.
I think an "open source book" would be a very interesting experiment. Of course you'd have to limit who could update your CVS archive, or else lots of kiddies would continually give it the textual equivalent of the goatse treatment.
Still, I'd like to see someone try it. Maybe it would turn out to be a bland lowest-common-denominator mush, but OTOH maybe the authors would build on each others ideas to create something nice.
So a spammer doesn't want to be bothered by solicitations. You won't need to take your iron supplements today, folks! There's irony a-plenty here.
>
So I wonder how many "no pork" can be on your flight before the US decides to shoot it down on the way in?
> Just one more toll on the road to paradise...
Sadly, they also had to discontinue the offer of 72 virgins because too many dikes were signing up.
> I can't stand pork. Therefore I must be a terrorist!
Let's confuse them by all saying "No aardvark, please!" at dinner time.
> On a serious note though, what was he going to do with all those numbers anyway?
<sheepish>I'm sorry guys - I thought I was reading from the National Random Number Server!</sheepish>
> Not to mention, if humans were so creative 50,000 years ago, why do we only have ~5,000 years of recorded history? Did it really take another 45,000 _years_ for us to write something down, or carve something, etc...? Come on.
Even if you are only familiar with recent history it should be clear that our species' technological capabilities are growing at an exponential rate. When you look further and further back you should be unsurprised to see that progress is almost flat out on the tail of the curve.
Simply put, no one wrote anything down until someone invented writing.
> ve never heard of anything man-made that's 50,000 years old.
Start with this. I can't vouch for the accuracy of that site, but if you don't like it a few minutes with Google should turn up a few thousand others. Or if you're really desperate you should be able to find lots of goodies in a library or anthropology textbook.
> Doesn't that really throw a monkey-wrench into the theory of evolution (which, like so many other theories, is so often stated as fact by those blinded to other possibilities).
If you have an alternative theory that explains the facts as well or better than the ToE does, there are lots of scientists who would like to hear it.
> The majority of stories in the Bible have been proven true. (Soddom and Gommorah, King David, Herod, Abraham, Moses)
I don't follow this very closely, but I keep hearing from completely orthogonal sources that there isn't any evidence for any of the biblical 'history' up through and including Solomon. Interested parties might want to check up on the opposing claims.
And of course some of it, such as the Great Flood, was falsified 200 years ago.
> after realizing these stories are true - the Bible says that "I am the word" - so it does take faith, but more courage to believe, if one thing is true in the Bible, it must all be true.
a) logos ("the word") does not refer to a book.
b) The leap you describe isn't so much "faith" as "bad logic". Historical novels have a lot of true stuff in them, but only a fool would conclude from that fact that the whole novel was true.
> Scientists (in aggregate) do not have an agenda of destroying all faiths.
I would guess that the majority of scientists in the USA are Christians. I think I have seen mention of a survey on it, which interested parties might be able to find with Google or by asking about it in the talk.origins newsgroup.